Anna Maria Pierangeli was born on June 19, 1932 in Cagliari, Sardina, Italy. Anna and her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, both had their eyes on film since that was one of the big Italian pastimes. Anna adopted her surname and split it in half. Thus Pier Angeli was the name she would find fame. Her first role was an uncredited part in 1948's The Million Dollar Nickel, an Italian production. Pier was 16 at the time and it was to be the first of many roles for this beautiful woman. The film was largely forgettable but it was a start. The following year Pier played in another Italian production called _Domani è troppo tardi (1949)_ . Again it was a very small role and she was not seen on the silver screen again until 1951. Between 1949 and 1951 she appeared in stage productions and found work in menial jobs. When she did return it was in the film The Light Touch as Anna Vasarri. Later that year she won the title role in Teresa. However, she again hit a drought with only one film in 1952 and two in 1953. 1954 was the year when things began to pick up with Hollywood beckoning at her door. After the Italian production of Mam'zelle Nitouche she caught the eyes of the Hollywood moguls who cast her in _Flame and the Flesh, The (1954)_ and The Silver Chalice. Now she divided her time between Italy and the US making movies. She married Vic Damone in 1954 which was a union that lasted only four years and produced one son.

No film offers were made in 1955, but in 1956, Pier landed the plum role of Norma Graziano (wife of fighter Rocky Graziano) in Somebody Up There Likes Me opposite Paul Newman. The film was well-received at the box-office and she had hopes that things were going to pick up again. She played Ynez in Port Afrique later that year and then another drought ensued. After The Vintage, Merry Andrew, and SOS Pacific, she made three more films in 1960. Then once again 1961 saw no appearances. In 1962, Pier played Ildith in The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah and later that year played in a French production entitled White Slave Ship. After the Italian production of Panic in Bangkok she returned to the US for the hit production of Battle of the Bulge.

After a handful of films between 1966 and 1970, Pier realized her dreams of super stardom were not to be. She had divorced her second husband (Armando Trovajoli) in 1969 and made her final appearance on the silver screen in 1971 which was a film called Octaman. On September 10 of that year, Pier was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in her Beverly Hills, California home. She was only 39 years old.
Reportedly, Pier and James Dean were very much in love and wanted to marry, but her mother blocked the union because Dean wasn't Catholic, and helped arrange Pier's marriage to Vic Damone. Before she committed suicide, Pier wrote that Dean was the only man she had ever really loved. Twin sister of actress Marisa Pavan. Screen, stage, and television actress. Dated James Dean while he was filming East of Eden. Had one son with Vic Damone, Perry, who works as a radio DJ for 99.9 FM in Phoenix, Arizona. Kirk Douglas, in his autobiography The Ragman's Son, states he was engaged to Pier in the early 1950s. In different situations but almost simultaneously, Léonide Moguy and Vittorio de Sica chose her for her first role. When shooting a central scene with Michael Craig in "The Angry Silence", she was so immersed into her character that she left the script and started to shout in Italian. The scene was so impressive that it remained in the film.